Determination of Phthalate Ester Plasticizer in Soils by Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry

A method for the determination of 6 phthalate esters (PAEs) by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) with accelerated solvent extraction (ASE) sample preparation was developed. Methylene chloride was selected as the optimum extraction solvent through the experiments and the programmed temperature condition of the chromatograph column was optimized in order to obtain the baseline separation between adjacent spectra from the targets of dimethyl (o-)phthalate (DMP) and diethyl (o-)phthalate(DEP). The linear range of the calibration curve was from 0.50 to 20 mg/L with correlation coefficient >0.997. The detection limit of the method for the PAEs was 0.067 mg/L and the recoveries were 81.9%~111.4%. The method provides the advantages of low detection limits, good precision, high efficiency and is suitable for routine analysis of PAEs in soil samples.